The night class I signed up for was titled ‘A Modern Interpretation of Western Esotericism.’
I have always had a vested interest in the unknown, unexplained and uncanny. Subjects that many right-brained people are dismissive of are the same ones I have always been fascinated by.
I found the course online. It was not something that would give me College credits or make me look better on a work resume. It would be a series of independent lectures not affiliated with anything tied to any academic institution. I still could not help but be drawn to it.
It was something to fritter away the hours I had during the days off from my job as a hotel clerk. I picked up the graveyard shifts there.
My schedule was already nocturnal so I had nothing to lose in taking the class. I did not see any harm in trying to socialize during those odd hours as opposed to merely watching movies and eating junk food.
Once I clicked on the advertisement of the class I was intrigued by the summary of its content which would be about literomancy, votive offerings and other spiritual terms I had heard of but knew nothing about when it came to its ritualistic practice within the specific cultures they originated from.
I paid the upfront cost and was emailed an address and the hour the class would begin.
*
I drove to a vacant lot in the middle of town with a towering building in its center.
I hopped out of my vehicle and stared at the address again on Google Maps to make sure I found the right place.
The screen told me I was at the correct location.
I walked in through a set of glass doors which were unlocked and made my way into the lobby area. It was an unfurnished and moldy tiled chamber with rusted lockers bolted to the walls.
A few squatters camped out in the corner and stared at me.
I made my way to the elevators and found they did not work. The buttons glowed but the lifts would not arrive.
I took the stairs. The class was held on the sixth floor so it was a small cardio workout.
When I was on the right level I passed a series of cherrywood doors until I found one propped open with fluorescent light streaming from the threshold.
I took in the sight of the space itself. Six other people had gotten there before me. Some of them were gothic and others looked like runaway youths. They had on black clothes, chainmail, pendants and bracelets.
The teacher was named Sam Hawke. I could not remember seeing his name in the course description. He indicated this by writing it out on the board. Pentagrams and other witchy symbols were illustrated on it around where he had scrawled it.
I was surprised by how he looked. He was slender, over six feet tall and had a full head of black hair. He wore a tweedy jacket, black tie and a red undershirt whose long sleeves puffed out near his palms. His eyes were emerald.
His movements between his desk and around the seated pupils were stiff. It was as though he was much older than his boyish looks would give away.
He locked eyes with me as I searched for an empty chair and table. Once I found it I sat in a hurried way.
By then the fact that I had to search for one was enough evidence to the instructor of how I was late. I could tell by his expression of bemusement that he had every plan to make an example out of me.
“What time is it?” Hawke asked as he raised a hand to motion in my direction.
“Eleven fifty,” I said.
“Right. We were all supposed to be here at eleven forty-five. As a first impression you are leaving me with considerations of not giving you extra tools that would be beneficial to you. I pick a name at the end of every class and whoever is selected will get to spend time with me to receive private lessons. This is no small luck of the draw and I can make you exempt if I should choose to do so.”
I found the concept unsettling. Such a practice was usually frowned upon in modern teaching circles. Then I had to consider how this was less of a formal place.
I nodded as though I pretended to have any idea of what he was discussing. I had no interest in a private class.
“I wasn’t on time because I missed a few exits driving here,” I said. “I usually don’t see this part of the city since my work is a few miles in the other direction.”
I pulled out my notebook and pen as a sort of passive peace offering to inform him that I was there to learn.
He stood, walked over to my desk and knocked all my supplies off the counter.
“Sounds like an excuse to me,” he said.
Hawke grabbed the pen off the floor and threw it against the chalkboard.
I felt myself grow flustered. I was not a stranger to confrontation but I did not expect this to happen in an environment I paid money to be in.
When I looked around all of the other attendees were as alarmed as I was. No one seemed to be siding with or protesting against him.
I decided to try and calm him now that all eyes were on the two of us.
I reached into my pocket again.
I pulled out another pen and a small bundle of yellow sticky notes.
I placed them in front of me and undid the cap as though I was ready to dictate whatever sentence he may have uttered next.
Hawke backed away for a second in surprise before he started laughing.
“That’s the kind of focus I expect from all of you,” he said as he sat behind his desk again.
The first one ended with a name drawn as Hawke stated it would. A nineteen-year-old named Cody remained seated as we left.
*
Another week passed before the second class. This time I arrived early.
I noticed Cody was not there for the second lecture and I could only speculate as to why.
“Last week we covered what gnosis is and how its effects permeate reality,” Hawke said as he paced back and forth in front of us with a gold pen in hand. “The first foundation is learning how to hypnotize oneself, to sink into a foreign state to imagine that what we want is already here. Some do this through meditation or prayer. Others do it through the ceremony. Today we will take a guided tour of the treasures your minds can create in a peaceful state where abundance is realized.”
The historical element that the subject of the last class was structured around was no longer present. This one had more to do with quiet introspection and a part of me yearned for more of an informational hour.
The concepts he introduced felt very much aligned with new-age mysticism to me but I was not closed-minded to them either. I still participated and felt good as he played soothing atmospheric music in the background.
When the class ended Hawke pulled another name. He rolled out a plastic casement on wheels from a supply closet in the rear of the room.
The notecards we had put our names on suddenly turned into a makeshift twister in the box. I had no clue how this was generated since there was no humming of a fan or the sight of spinning blades.
He reached in and plucked one of the pieces of paper.
Hawke called out my name.
Everyone turned to stare at me.
“Everyone is free to leave except for the early bird,” he said as he pointed at me.
No one chuckled at his joke.
As the others started to trickle out I grabbed my binder and approached the teacher.
“I appreciate the opportunity,” I said, “but I have somewhere to be. I have to cover an associate who called out sick at work.”
“This is so much more important than that,” he said as he reached into one of his desk drawers and retrieved a set of faded keys. “It’s not every day someone well versed in this kind of material is willing to share the wisdom of the ancients with a prospect. Follow me. It won’t take long.”
He stepped out into the hallway.
I inquired as to whether or not he rented out the classroom space or a part of the building as a whole.
“I inherited this property from my father back when it was a luxury resort,” he said as we made our way down a dust-blanketed vestibule. “That was forever ago. As you can tell the surrounding neighborhoods grew more dilapidated as the decades passed.”
He hurried down a stairwell filled with dust mites and cobwebs.
I followed. I was under the impression we would end up on an identical level.
Instead, we arrived in a large room with seats and a single screen. It was a small theater.
“The front row is yours,” he said as he clicked a button attached to the wall by one of the hanging curtains.
Everything became alive.
A coming attraction for an animated film I had never heard of blared. It detailed a steamboat and a man who made others bet in live poker. The cost was their souls.
“One thing you have to realize is that mass media has been using spell work to control and influence others since its inception,” Hawke said. “Every corporate symbol you’ve ever seen is one drawn with a magnified intent behind it. Every modern commercial has esoteric underpinnings in its subtext whether the crew developing the piece knew that or not.”
The screen became an old black-and-white piece of footage that showcased a skinny man eaten whole by an umbrella.
The next series of images was of a lion as it leaped onto a stone that jutted from oceanic depths before a wave submerged the beast.
“Do you want me to analyze these images?” I asked.
“Not at all,” Hawke asked as he grabbed his abdomen, bent over and gave an uproarious laugh. “You are far too rudimentary to be capable of understanding. Keep observing and we can get you to a point where you understand the trappings the CEOs use to sell their products. Their agenda must be exposed.”
A flash of pictures occurred as though it were a flip book.
A packet of unknown cigarettes was enveloped in a haze on the screen. Candy labels flew by. Amusement parks I had never heard of and was convinced had to be closed at this point since everything was still not in black and white floated underneath the view of the camera lense.
Then a small movie rolled.
The opening scene displayed a large bear with human features moving through a forest before it fell into a ditch. Spikes pierced its flesh and it yelled.
The noise was so visceral I felt as though I was watching torture. Its audible presentation was real enough that I could not believe it was a voice actor.
Hawke put his hand on my shoulder.
“The most potent will to power magick,” he said as he leaned in, “is one that is not afraid to sacrifice something. Themselves or another or an animal. Some of the best warlocks became animators around the Steamboat Willie era. Their penchant for drawing creatures which were not human is no coincidence.”
My stomach felt sick. Perhaps it was the instructor’s words and his twisted interpretation of the entertainment industry or maybe it was the squealing coming from the screen which seemed to never stop.
Snippets of scenes where livestock had their heads cut off filled the screen.
Pools of ebony ink filled the hills of farmland and dropped down between crookedly placed gate posts that circled crumbling ranches.
I looked for exit signs.
There were not any I could see.
I gazed at the screen again and a jump cut in the footage occurred. It now focused on a battle scene during the period of Alexander the Great and depicted elephants getting impaled with silver spears.
I ran out.
“Do not be angry at me for opening your eyes young one,” Hawke said as I sprinted away from him.
I made my way out of the building and into the rain.
*
I took the next couple of days off with sick pay before returning to the hotel.
I found I could not concentrate and had reflections of hopelessness every time I awoke. This did not strictly have the sensation of chronic or untreated depression. The emotional malaise was tinged with something more fear-based than a foundation of the usual and unspecified guilt I was used to when without something to strive towards.
I ruminated on how the teacher had single-handedly convinced me that every titan of the entertainment industry I admired could be written off as a lazy and malicious necromancer.
It sounded absurd but I was unable to eliminate the sense that his investigative conclusions had merit.
I searched social media for every Cody within a twenty-mile radius. I had to meet with him and compare experiences.
I found him easily once I discovered a profile picture that matched. I sent him a friend request along with a message.
‘Please get back with me,’ it read. ‘We need to discuss Hawke.’
I went to start my shift and received a notification around my lunch break. We agreed to meet in the morning at a cafe located at a halfway mark between his suburb and my workplace.
*
Cody arrived and ordered a cup of coffee so strong that it was no wonder he had black circles around his eyes. A lack of rest was his natural stage of being based on his slender frame and exhausted demeanor.
I was at a table on the empty patio outside and he joined me.
The first thing I observed was how normal he was dressed. Gone were the baggy black jeans and band shirts in favor of a green polo and seamed slacks.
“You gave up the darkness?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You look like you’re headed for a golf course instead of playing in a Rammstein cover band.”
“I only dressed like that to impress the women in the class,” he said with a shrug.
I nodded and chose not to press the issue further.
“So why are you curious about Hawke?” Cody asked.
“I had a weird experience with him a couple of days ago,” I said as I stared at the ground. “He brought me into a back room and made me view some old media. Footage produced after the Charlie Chaplin days if I had to guess. He wanted to show me the subliminal messaging of it and how it was used to influence the masses. I grew up in a house where my parents never censored what I watched and as a result it takes a lot to bother me but something about this particular footage unsettled me. It seemed to…shake something in me. I was curious as to whether or not you had a similar experience happen to you and that’s why you didn’t show up last time.”
He inhaled a big lungful of air and took a long sip of his hot beverage.
“Yes,” he said. “So my name was drawn. I wasn’t excited or bummed. I thought it might be a little fun to learn more about the occult from someone as well read as him.”
He paused and looked around. A server wiped down a table a few feet away from us and went back inside as he continued.
“I considered how it might be knowledge that the other people who signed up for the course wouldn’t know. Like something he would bestow upon me exclusively.”
“Do you practice?” I asked.
“Yes. Candle burning spells I found online and little things here and there. I’m not so deeply into it that I’d consider it a religion or anything. Anyway, he took me down the hall after everyone left. We go into another office that looks as normal as an accounting room. Filing cabinets, outdated Xerox machines and stacks of envelopes. Boring. We walked down a row of cubicles and he showed me a supply room that at first I assumed belonged to a janitor because there were cleaning chemicals everywhere. We go down this long hallway and it stretches on for a while. That’s when I saw…”
Cody stopped and took another swig of the drink.
He pulled out a pint of whiskey and poured some into his coffee after he undid the lid. I waited and spared him the lecture on the time of day.
“It was an altar,” Cody said. “A wide open space with drawings on the floor depicting a figure with one eye. I guess you would call it Cyclopean but it wasn’t human. Its form was misty, not of flesh but something less permanent like a texture you could walk through. The exception to that was the face. It had multiple arms close to the old drawings of Shiva but way more…alien. The wrists had fangs or suction pods. I know it sounds strange but that’s because it was.”
“Did he ask you to do anything with it?” I asked.
“He gave a prayer. Maybe it was a recitation or chant.”
“Do you remember how it went?”
“I’m not going to repeat it. What I will say is he wanted it done repeatedly.”
“Did you?”
Cody leaned back in his chair with his arms folded before he answered.
“I don’t want to say,” he said. “He promised me that something would rise from the oceans. I can’t remember what he called it but it had a name that didn’t sound English. Or any language I’ve ever heard.”
I was frustrated with how he was not elaborating on some of his answers. I did have the sense that Cody was telling me as much as he was comfortable and that anything he was withholding was not done out of spite or secretiveness but fear.
He had walked away with the same sense of intangible and almost inexplicable dread I had from my encounter with Hawke.
He was using both of us as vehicles for some sort of shamanic means. One that was likely born of ill will towards someone or something. As a believer in the unknown, even if I could not pretend to understand all of it, I did not enjoy the feeling of being a pawn.
“You’re not alone,” I said. “He made me feel the same way. You moved out of there quickly, didn’t you? As though a fire erupted behind you?”
He nodded.
“We have to attend the next class,” I said. “We can figure out what his true aim is and stop it so no one else has to walk away feeling changed by whatever incantation he’s using.”
*
I walked into the classroom and observed how empty it was.
I was disappointed that Cody did not join me. It was obvious he had succumbed to his apprehensions and chose not to help.
Hawke stood and leaned against his desk with a grin on his face.
“Where is everyone else?” I asked as I looked around at the unfilled seats.
“You don’t have to worry about anyone but yourself,” Hawke said as he walked over to the board. “I exempted everyone. I made them leave. You can thank me later. This is a private lecture. It’s a continuation of what we started a few days ago.” He turned around and drew a hideous face,l but it was with such artistic precision I was in disbelief at his talent.
His hand dragged the chalk against the board with speed and frenzy, a musician hitting the most complicated notes at a rapid tempo. It was as though he was possessed by something outside of himself with the determination to create something so visually elaborate.
He sketched out a decapitated owl with intricate feathers which had numerous symbols designed into its coat. All of the designs on the animal’s body were unrecognizable.
When Hawke set the chalk down and turned back to face me I heard a loud banging behind me.
The door had shut and the sound of a latch locking place reverberated in the chamber.
I looked at the narrow slit of the door and the ground in search of something moving, a secondary accomplice who had trapped me in here but I could not see anything.
I went to the windows and tried to undo them without luck. The drop below would have killed me anyways.
“This class is mandatory now,” he said.
“Please,” I said. “You have to let me go. I don’t know what you want but you can’t keep me here.”
“All I want you to do is learn about the purifying process,” he said. “You don’t have to be a miserable worker for the rest of your life. You can have it all, boy. The new cars and many houses on the beach. World fame and instant recognition everywhere you go. All you have to do is agree to the purification. Engage in the ritualistic iconography that all the successful men in the world have done to improve their lives at the expense of the less fortunate. Let me teach you. I own this building. Do you think my success in real estate happened through hard work? No. It happened because I agreed to the terms of the descendants of the ones who founded this culture. All I am doing is spreading the wisdom I have gained. I can have you learn a chant that will cause a great deity to come forth and spread shadows on everything which will make those of us who worship him the elite among weaklings.”
He neared me. I was so worried about whether or not he was going to physically harm me that I kept my attention on his arms. It seemed as though he was floating toward where I stood.
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to join some kind of weird group. I like my little lot in life.”
He lunged at me and his hands wrapped around my throat.
I grabbed the legs of a desk and swung it at him. At first he did not budge.
I brought my knee up and pushed him off of me.
As my blood started flowing again and I caught my breath.
I looked towards the door once more and crawled towards it until I was able to get to my feet and run.
I lifted a desk and kicked the door down. I looked back to see if he was chasing me. The entire classroom seemed awash with a light that was snowy and turned into bright orange and red.
*
Once I got home I searched for the class online again. Adrenaline was still coursing through me.
I wanted to press charges of assault.
I filed a police report. I was told they would investigate the address and was comforted by a 911 dispatcher who told me they sent out a squadron.
I never heard back and always wondered how much they were bribed to say their findings were inconclusive.
I later searched online for the class and the teacher’s name.
It was as though he never existed.
I tried to make contact with Cody again if only to get a verification of the fact that I was not going crazy. How none of the events which unfurled were in my head.
Cody had blocked my profile. I often consider whether it was because there was something about me he did not like or if he was ashamed of not confronting Hawke the way I wanted us to. He did not want to feel the guilt of being reminded of how he had backed down. * I awoke the next day and found a message on my phone.
I played it even though I did not recognize the number and presumed it to be a telemarketer.
“This is Professor Hawke. I wanted to let you know something critical. You failed the final exam but you are always welcome to sign up next year.”